Southwest COO Doesn’t Expect Boeing To Certify The 737 MAX 7 Until April 2024

The world’s largest low-cost carrier, Dallas-based Southwest Airlines, eagerly awaits the certification of its upcoming Boeing 737 MAX 7 aircraft. However, it still doesn’t expect these to take to the skies in blue, yellow, and red until almost this time next year.

Boeing is currently working with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on resolving current open items dependent on certification. Southwest is adding a buffer of time to when they expect the aircraft to take flight finally.

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Southwest, which will be the largest customer for the MAX 7, has more than 300 of the variant on order, with deliveries expected to continue into the next decade. The carrier announced its plans to add 108 MAX 7 to its order book only last month. Once airborne, the aircraft will be configured to carry up to 150 passengers across the United States and beyond.

Certification by April?

Boeing has publically stated that it hopes to have the MAX 7 certified by the end of 2023, and Boeing’s CEO is giving all he’s got to ensure that the FAA has “all the flexibility they need,” as reported by Reuters. However, the Chief Operating Officer at Southwest isn’t convinced, so he has added some ‘padding’ to their estimates as they plan next year’s operations.

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In an interview with Reuters, the Southwest COO, Andrew Watterston, mentioned they don’t want to delay any of its expansion plans, so reiterated:

“For our internal planning purposes, we assume it’ll be certified in April and then flying for us in the October-November time frame,”

With this, the carrier expects the aircraft will be allowed to start flying for Southwest by around October or November 2024. Introducing the variant into the carrier’s fleet will provide flexibility in capacity subject to demand throughout any day of the week. However, recent delays in the certification of the MAX 7 have meant Southwest decided to convert multiple orders for the MAX 7 to the larger and more popular MAX 8.

Read more: Delayed Again: Southwest Airlines Converts Some Boeing 737 MAX 7 Orders To MAX 8s

Safety First

As noted by Reuters, the FAA declined to comment on the expected certification of the MAX 7, citing that “safety dictates the timeline of certification projects.” With this, the MAX 7 and 10 are working through the requirements set out by the FAA in the hope of achieving first deliveries next year.

Once certified, the 7 and 10 are poised to provide stiff competition for Airbus in the narrowbody market. While Southwest has put the larger MAX 8 to good use, analysts have identified that flooding the market with extra unnecessary capacity could hurt the airline’s overall bottom line.

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Simple Flying reached out to Boeing, and they directed us to remarks made in the Q3 earnings call with Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun, who stated,

“We’re progressing across our commercial programs and our timelines are unchanged on the 737-7 and the 737-10 and the 777X and 777-8 Freighter. A reminder, as always, the FAA will ultimately control the timing. the FAA makes that call. And we’re going to give them all the flexibility they need. We try to interpret it the best we can and that’s what we’ve done. Know that there haven’t been any real changes to the airplanes.”

What are your thoughts on this? Let us know in the comments.

Sources: Reuters